Leaked documents reveal New Zealand’s health ministry giving alcohol lobbyists – including Diageo, Bacardi and Brown-Forman – a direct hand in shaping policy, while shutting out the public.
The documents obtained by RNZ make one thing undeniable: alcohol corporations have enjoyed privileged access to shape New Zealand’s health policy. Officials gave the draft FASD plan to alcohol companies for feedback – while keeping it from the public, a process that industry then used to attack prevalence estimates and undermine a public campaign that had measurable impact.
Big Alcohol’s Seat at the Table
Spirits New Zealand presents itself as the “credible voice” of the spirits sector. But its membership list tells the real story: Asahi Beverages, Bacardi, Beam Suntory, Brown-Forman, Diageo, Lion, Moët-Hennessy, Pernod Ricard and William Grant & Sons. These are some of the largest alcohol corporations on the planet, controlling vast portfolios of spirits, ready-to-drink products and beer. Together they represent more than 98% of New Zealand’s spirits market. What looks like a national trade body is in reality the New Zealand front for global capital defending its profits against proven health measures.
The documents also expose how the industry tried to influence the use of the Alcohol Levy – NZ$16.6 million of public money meant for harm-reduction programmes. In one email, lobbyists bragged about checking with their corporate headquarters “from London to Louisville, Kentucky” before making submissions, a reminder that New Zealand policy is being steered by overseas profit centres. The papers show industry pressure to steer levy spending away from WHO-endorsed measures like pricing and availability controls, and towards “education” campaigns that look good in PR but do little to reduce overall harm.
Guidelines Stalled after Lobby Pressure
The investigations also show that Health New Zealand had begun updating the outdated 2011 “low-risk” alcohol guidelines. But after lobbyists complained directly to a Ministry manager, the project was abruptly halted. Internal correspondence shows the instruction: “All work on this project will now pause.” As a result, evidence-based guidance for the public was shelved.
The ministry’s own documents show quarterly meetings and structured access for the lobby – a process that excluded the public while opening the door to Diageo, Bacardi, Brown-Forman and peers to contest the FASD strategy and the levy’s use.
The lobbying power here is not local or community-based – it is global. Spirits New Zealand’s roster includes subsidiaries of multinational corporations like Diageo, Bacardi and Brown-Forman, but also Independent Liquor, now owned outright by Asahi Group and rebranded as Asahi Beverages NZ in 2019.
The documents expose a health ministry drifting toward co-governance with the alcohol lobby. That breaches the spirit of WHO’s Global Alcohol Action Plan, which aims to protect health-policy making from commercial interference. New Zealand needs bright-line rules: no industry role in policy development, full transparency of all contacts, and fast-tracking of SAFER-aligned measures – pricing, availability, and marketing restrictions – that the lobby is working to stall.
Conclusion
The documents reveal how Big Alcohol has secured a privileged role in shaping health policy – from Diageo and Bacardi to Brown-Forman and Asahi, companies whose global profits rely on keeping alcohol cheap, available, and aggressively marketed. Their fingerprints are visible in efforts to stall updated guidelines, weaken the FASD strategy, and redirect levy funds toward PR-friendly “education” campaigns. What emerges is not a partnership in public health, but a calculated defence of market share by some of the world’s largest liquor corporations.
Political interference, or lobbying, is Big Alcohol’s activity to eliminate or minimize any alcohol policy effort that would threaten sales and profits. The focus of this Dubious Five strategy is the decision-makers and opinion leaders with the power to shape and decide alcohol policy decisions. Tactics of political interference are delay, derail, or even destroy alcohol policy initiatives, and to divide coalitions supporting alcohol policy initiatives. Big Alcohol is paying lobbyists and lobby front groups to interfere in public health policy making around the world.
Sources:
- https://amp.rnz.co.nz/article/000f3693-c64e-4208-9d6e-594a8d629015
- https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/531278/health-nz-s-new-alcohol-guidelines-halted-after-complaints-from-lobby